Andersonville Prison

“ Dear Comrade: Some fifteen years ago the Department of Georgia, G. A. R., considered the idea of buying the Andersonville prison pen and holding it in memory of the men who there died for the preservation of the Union.
The committee bought all the land the owners would release and hoped to raise through the Northern posts and their friends a permanent fund for the care of the grounds.
The plan proved a failure. The G. A. R. in the South is very poor. Its members are mostly colored men who [Pg 125] are able to make little more than their living. ”

“ Under the most favorable circumstances the water supply was insufficient for one-quarter of the number of men confined there. All the water obtainable was from a sluggish creek that ran through the grounds; and, in addition to this, there were thirty-six hundred men acting as guards camped on the bank of this stream before it reached the prison pen, and the water became so foul no words can describe it.”—From “A Sketch of Andersonville,” by Mrs. Lizabeth A. Turner, Chairman Andersonville Prison Board. Journal of the Twenty-fifth National Convention of the Woman’s Relief Corps, page 169. ”

“ About three quarters of a mile off we could see a large enclosure composed of timber set on end in the ground, with sentry boxes set along the top, and that was the Andersonville prison pen. The old Dutchman, as he was called, Captain Wirz, riding a white horse, came along and escorted us to the prison gate. Here he left us with the guards and himself went inside to learn what part of the prison to assign us to. While we were waiting outside of the prison gates a lot of Yankee prisoners came from the woods with [Pg 42] arms full of fagots that they had been gathering for fuel. ”

“ It was another pen, with high walls of thick pine plank, which told us only too plainly how vain were our expectations of exchange.
When we were turned inside, and I realized that the gates of another prison had closed upon me, hope forsook me. I flung our odious little possessions-our can, chess-board, overcoat, and blanket-upon the ground, and, sitting down beside them, gave way to the bitterest despair. I wanted to die, O, so badly. Never in all my life had I desired anything in the world so much as I did now to get out of it. ”

“ Many were captured and landed in Andersonville. Here they conspired to rob and murder fellow prisoners. Capt. Wirtz convened a trial court composed of prisoners who observed all the forms of law in the trial of these desperadoes. Six of them were found guilty of murder and were hung.
[2] Market Square was a piece of made ground on the edge of the swamp in the center of the prison. Here men came together to barter trinkets they had made to while away the time, to exchange parts of rations, and to indulge generally, so far as they could, in the Yankee instinct for trade. ”

“ Human voices pleading for relief were answered by Him who spoke by the wind, the lightning and the flood.
It is said that the spiritual desires of our hearts are the reflection of what God is waiting to do for us through our own co-operation. Surely then, the prayers of the Andersonville prisoners for water were incited by Him who saw their dire necessity, and who waited only for human hands to aid in the release of the fountain of water which his Omnipotence had created. ”

“ I was in the Christian Commission service outside Wilmington, North Carolina, near the close of the war, with General Terry, when he received the first installment of old Andersonville prisoners as they were sent into our lines. Terry was all broken up over their condition.” “Could the prisoners walk?” asked the writer. “Yes,” he replied; “some of them could, but many had to be brought in on ambulances.” He was asked, “Where did you put those who were sick?” “We laid them on the floor of a little church that was close by,” Dr. Patton replied. Extending his hand the writer said, “Dr. ”

“ In such a filthy and crowded hospital as that of the Confederate, States Military Prison of Camp Sumter, Andersonville, it was impossible to isolate the wounded from the sources of actual contact of the gangrenous matter. The flies swarming over the wounds and over filth of every description ”

“ The world will never know or believe the horrors of Andersonville and other prisons in the South. No living, human being, in my judgment, will ever be able to properly paint the horrors of those infernal dens.
I formed the acquaintance of several Ohio soldiers whilst in prison. Among these were O. D. Streeter, of Cleveland, who went to Andersonville about the same time that I did, and escaped, and was the only man that I ever knew that escaped and reached our lines. After an absence of several months he was retaken in one of Sherman's battles before Atlanta, and brought back. ”

“ Had I been posted over prisoners I should have had no compunction about shooting at those trying to get away, and consequently I could not blame the Rebels for doing the same thing. It was a matter of soldierly duty.
But not one of the men assassinated by the guards at Andersonville were trying to escape, nor could they have got away if not arrested by a bullet. In a majority of instances there was not even a transgression of a prison rule, and when there was such a transgression it was a mere harmless inadvertence. The slaying of every man there was a foul crime. ”

“ When logs were occasionally found or brought into prison, men tore them to pieces almost with their naked fingers. Every prisoner will bear me out in the assertion that there was probably not a root as large as a bit of clothes-line in all the ground covered by the prisons, that eluded the faithfully eager search of freezing men for fuel. What else than deliberate design can account for this systematic withholding from the prisoners of that which was so essential to their existence, and which it was so easy to give them? ”

“ As Andersonville is not a battlefield, the authorities declined the proposition.
On two occasions a like proposal was made to the National G. A. R. Encampment, but these veterans decided that the time is not far distant when they can care only for themselves.
With better success the responsibility was tendered to the Woman’s Relief Corps, which felt that if there is a place on God’s earth that should be held sacred, it is that prison pen. The officials accepted the obligation, trusting to woman’s patriotism for support and care, and they have not trusted in vain. ”

“ As one man looked up, in landing, to the flag waving in the hospital grounds, he said earnestly, "We're glad to see you; we know there's grub enough under you." Such inexpressible relief and joy were never felt by mortals before. Libby Prison and Belle Isle had startled the ear of humanity by their records of woe, but the story of Andersonville far exceeded theirs. The revolting torments inflicted in that place are too well known to need repetition. Rather let us dwell upon the happiness of those fortunate enough to escape. The hospital was crowded to its utmost capacity. ”

“ Brothers John and Lemuel are in service at Andersonville prison. The former is major of the First Georgia, and the latter is a sergeant under Captain Wirz. I know they are kind to the prisoners under their charge. Major Sherrar, of Maryland, slapped or kicked some cowardly fellow, who had solicited the oath and release from prison, and, when reported to Ahl, was ordered to the pen occupied by the "galvanized" men. ”

“ Kate E. Jones, to visit Prison Park at Andersonville. As I walked through the grounds and read and pondered on the suffering there endured, it seemed, indeed, a hallowed spot. Just beyond is the National Cemetery, in whose broad trenches are interred more soldiers in one group than upon any battlefield on the face of the globe. A whole army perished rather than deny the country which gave them birth! The bravery of the men at Thermopylae has been the theme of song and story ”

“ The thirtieth of May is sacred to the nation. With its return the heart of the country instinctively turns to those eighty-three national cemeteries, mostly on Southern soil, where in 194,492 known and 151,710 unknown graves lie 346,202 men who fell fighting for the flag. And in all the land, fittingly enough, there are no spots more beautiful than these. For their care and improvement the national government spends $100,000 a year.
The cemetery at Andersonville, Ga., gains additional interest in view of the famous prison connected with it. ”

“ The Federal armies were reclothed and paid off in the spring of 1864. The new recruits and re-enlisted veterans, in many instances, had with them bounty money when captured. Greenbacks could be pressed into the sole of a shoe, or placed inside a brass button. In various ways money was concealed about the person.
The authorities at Andersonville allowed supplies to be sold to the prisoners for Federal money. Numerous small restaurants flourished in the stockade. From small clay ovens they supplied fresh bread and baked meats. ”

“ For a while wood was quite plentiful, and we had the luxury daily of warm fires, which the increasing coolness of the weather made important accessories to our comfort.
Other prisoners kept coming in. Those we left behind at Savannah followed us, and the prison there was broken up. Quite a number also came in from—Andersonville, so that in a little while we had between six and seven thousand in the Stockade. The last comers found all the material for tents and all the fuel used up, and consequently did not fare so well as the earlier arrivals. ”

“ The Confederate Military Prison at Andersonville, Ga., consists of a strong Stockade, twenty feet in height, enclosing twenty-seven acres. The Stockade is formed of strong pine logs, firmly planted in the ground. The main Stockade is surrounded by two other similar rows of pine logs, the middle Stockade being sixteen feet high, and the outer twelve feet. These are intended for offense and defense. If the inner Stockade should at any time be forced by the prisoners, the second forms another line of defense ”

“ The prisoners of Andersonville were dying at a terrible rate, especially those who had been longest in rebel hands. The rebels had deliberately planned the murder of the Union prisoners by the slow process of starvation and disease. It was at first slow but sure, and then it was sure and rapid. I have counted three hundred and sixty lifeless skeletons of our boys that had died in one day. You might walk around the prison any hour in the day and see men closing their eyes in death. Diarrhœa and scurvy appeared to be the most fatal diseases. ”

“ In the imperfect light the guards mistook him for one of us who had jumped from the train. They all fired, and the unlucky negro fell, pierced by a score of bullets.
That night we camped in the open field. When morning came we saw, a few hundred yards from us, a Stockade of rough logs, with guards stationed around it. It was another prison pen. They were just bringing the dead out, and two men were tossing the bodies up into the four-horse wagon which hauled them away for burial. The men were going about their business as coolly as if loading slaughtered hogs. ”

“ We held conferences, at which every man was required to contribute all the geographical knowledge of that section of Georgia that he might have left over from his schoolboy days, and also that gained by persistent questioning of such guards and other Rebels as he had come in contact with. When first landed in the prison we were as ignorant of our whereabouts as if we had been dropped into the center of Africa. But one of the prisoners was found to have a fragment of a school atlas, in which was an outline map of Georgia, that had Macon, Atlanta, Milledgeville, and Savannah laid down upon it. ”

“ The police and internal economy of the prison was left almost entirely in the hands of the prisoners themselves; the duties of the Confederate soldiers acting as guards being limited to the occupation of the boxes or lookouts ranged around the stockade at regular intervals, and to the manning of the batteries at the angles of the prison. Even judicial matters pertaining to themselves, as the detection and punishment of such crimes as theft and murder appear to have been in a great measure abandoned to the prisoners. ”

“ We were exposed to the [Pg 16] heat of the sun during the day and at night suffered from cold, for we had no shelter or covering of any sort. Starved for want of food and water, hundreds died daily.
For a long time our men had been trying to get up some plan to make their escape from prison. We had dug a number of tunnels, but old Wirz had always found us out. We finally concluded to start in one of our wells which we had dug about sixty feet without getting water. This well was about seventy-five feet from the stockade ”

“ The bitter cry which arose from the suffering camp was changed on the lips of a few to an appeal to heaven. Where else could men look in their dire extremity? One evening early in August the sound of the old long metre doxology was heard from the voices of a group of men gathered around the solitary pine stump in the enclosure, which was situated at the end of the north street of the prison where space was left for the ration wagon to turn around. On this stump was seated an emaciated cavalry sergeant, Mr. Shepard, of Columbus, Ohio, formerly an honored preacher of the gospel. ”

“ At noon the next day we got back to prison. Wirz told the guards they were d— fools for bringing us back and told us we should be thankful to get back alive. After relieving us of our quilts the gates were opened and we were marched into Andersonville again.
We had some praying men at Andersonville. They held nightly prayer meetings, and they [Pg 29] prayed for water. They prayed like men that meant business, for we were all dying for the want of it. One day after one of these meetings there occurred one of the most fearful rains I ever saw. It washed the stockade as clean as a hound's tooth. ”

“ There was a post and a fire on the shore next us, and a single guard with a lantern was stationed on one of the middle spans. Almost famished with hunger, and so weary and footsore that we could scarcely move another step, we went back to a cleared place on the high ground, and laid down to sleep, entirely reckless as to what became of us. Late in the morning we were awakened by the Rebel patrol and taken back to the prison. Lieutenant Davis, disgusted with the perpetual attempts to escape, moved the Dead Line out forty feet from the Stockade ”